Category: SES & RFB

Provide your feed back on the Paluma Recovery Roadshow

Dear Paluma Community,

Thank you for being part of the recent Paluma Recovery Roadshow on 17th September 2026.

The time, effort, and resources your organisation contributed to the event is greatly appreciated by both the Recovery and Resilience team, and the Paluma community. Your involvement helped create a valuable opportunity for residents to connect with local services, learn about disaster preparedness and recovery, and strengthen community resilience.

Our team would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete the exhibitor feedback survey below by Tuesday 3rd October 2026:

Paluma Recovery Roadshow Exhibitor Feedback Survey

Your feedback will help inform future Roadshows, support our evaluation and reporting requirements, and demonstrate the value of continuing to deliver community recovery and resilience initiatives across the Townsville region.

We’re pleased to share that attendee feedback from the day was overwhelmingly positive:

✅ Over 50 attendees!

✅ 100% rated the event Excellent or Good.

✅ 100% reported increased understanding about disaster recovery.

✅ 100% left feeling confident about who to contact for support before, during, and after severe weather.

✅ 70% identified new preparedness actions they could take.

✅ 100% of people who identified new actions to take, indicated they would follow up on them after the event.

Qualitative feedback also highlighted the value of making connections, being able to access multiple local services in one location, and being able to speak directly with agencies and community organisations. This proves the positive impact your organisation had in the Paluma community by participating in the event.

Thank you again for your support, partnership, and contribution to making this event such a success!

Kind Regards,
Recovery and Resilience Team
E  localrecoverycoordinator@townsville.qld.gov.au
Local Disaster Coordination Centre 113-123 Dalrymple Road Garbutt, Townsville QLD 4810

The Townsville City Council Recovery Roadshow is coming to Paluma on Saturday!

Designed for communities impacted by severe weather and geographical isolation, the roadshow is an opportunity for residents to connect with local services, access practical support, and learn about resources available to help them recover and build resilience.

October 17, 10am -1:00pm

On the day, enjoy:

  • Live music from The Hidden Valley Honky Tonker
  • Bubbles, temporary tattoos, face painting and colouring-in with Marvellous Miss Mary
  • Free sausage sizzle provided by the Paluma District and Community Association
  • Opportunity to complete your own “Connect and Collect Passport” and win a prize
  • Stalls from Red Cross, Townsville Health and Hospital Service, SES, Queensland Police Service, Volunteering North Queensland, Townsville City Council, Hinchinbrook Shire Council, and many more!

Come along to connect with your community and build your severe weather recovery network. Because connected communities recover better.”

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to give me a call 😊

Kind Regards,

Hannah Billington

Community Recovery & Resilience Officer
Infrastructure & Operations
M  0461 377 566    E  Hannah.billington@townsville.qld.gov.au  

Local Disaster Coordination Centre 113-123 Dalrymple Road Garbutt, Townsville QLD 4810

Notice to all Paluma Ratepayers

Image from April 2022

On Saturday January 17, a public meeting is to be held at the Paluma Community Centre at 10am for all ratepayers to discuss the setting of the 2026 fire levy. 

Come along and also find out what the brigade is up to over a cuppa and piece of cake. If there are any queries in the lead up to the meeting, please contact Sonya Bryce, Treasurer / Secretary of Paluma Rural Fire Brigade on (0474) 324153. 

The Annual General Meeting of the Paluma Rural Fire Brigade will follow on from the morning tea for those that are interested.

Reminder & Time Change: Disaster Plan briefing and Tropical BBQ

Time for the briefing on the new Emergency Action Plan has been rescheduled to 5:30 pm in order to allow people west of the Paluma Dam road to get into town (the road is closed until 5 pm). The Tropical BBQ will start immediately after the Briefing.

The briefing will be led by Sonya Bryce and Charlie Allen, who have put many hours into collecting relevant information, procedures and contacts so that we can effectively self-organise if we experience a serious rain event or cyclone in the future. The document will be continuously revised and improved. The current version and relevant appendices can be accessed on Paluma.org here.

Paluma and District Disaster Management Plan Briefing

A briefing on the current Disaster Management Plan for all residents of Paluma Village, neighbouring residential areas and Hidden Valley residents will be presented on Saturday December 13th at 5pm by the SES and RFS.

This will be followed by our annual Tropical Xmas BBQ at 6pm. Bring along whatever you wish to cook on the bbq and a side or dessert to share.

The PDCA will have a few sausages and onions on the BBQ. The bar will be open of course. It is time to kick back and welcome in the silly season and listen to some great live music by the talented Stefan Mussap.

Community Meetings and BBQ now scheduled for April 12th.

Prior to the meetings below the PDCA will provide a BBQ lunch at noon, April 12th at the Community Hall

A community meeting to review our experiences during & after the February extreme weather event will now be held on Saturday, 12th of April, commencing at 1 pm in the Paluma Community Hall. The objective is to record lessons learnt for the future, discuss known problems & see what we can do to improve how we manage such events. All members of the community are encouraged to attend. See agenda here.

If you are unable to attend but would like to have a specific issue included for discussion, feel free to contact Charlie Allen, Peter Cooke, Anneshka Brown or Jamie Oliver to let them know.

There will also be a regular meeting of the PDCA Council at 3pm, after the community meeting. This PDCA meeting will cover various ongoing items (see agenda below). While these meetings have traditionally been considered as business meetings attended only by the elected members of the Council/Executive, we welcome any residents to attend and to raise any items that they would like the PDCA to consider in addition to what is already on the agenda. Here is the proposed agenda.

Community Meeting to review experiences and lessons learned during the recent rain event

A community meeting to review our experiences during & after the February extreme weather event will be held on Saturday the 22nd of March commencing at 1 pm in the Paluma Community Hall. The objective is to record lessons learnt for the future, discuss known problems & see what we can do to improve how we manage such events. All members of the community are encouraged to attend.

Charlie Allen

Update on last Sunday’s Meeting with the Mayor

As mentioned in the last “Paluma in the Rain” update, we had a visit from the acting Mayor (Councillor Ann-Maree Greaney) and Zac Daws, Local Disaster Coordinator last Sunday. In preparation for the meeting, Peter Cooke wrote up a list of issues for discussion which included:

  1. lack of news on the state of the range road and the schedule for repairs
  2. lack of adequate backup power for the Telstra mobile phone tower
  3. need for a formal landing area near the village for helicopters
  4. need for rubbish collection as soon as possible
  5. need for road maintenance to Ewan and Hervey’s Range road
  6. request to increase bandwidth of the TCC wifi link at the Community Hall

The mayor noted that many of these items were outside their immediate responsibility but undertook to pass our concerns on to the relevant authority, and to respond in writing to those issues it was in a position to act on.

The following response was sent to Charlie Allen and Ross Hyne on Monday.